Note and Comment

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 17, 1907

The Roman Church is making much at the present time of missions to non-Catholics. Such a mission was held recently at New Bedford, Mass., presided over by “Father” Bradley. A portion of the time of each service was taken up in answering questions. One of the questions answered on the evening of September 30 was this:—

Is it not paganism under a new name, to worship statues, relics, and similar articles? And yet the Catholics are doing this very thing.

To this question “Father” Bradley replied as follows:—

Never forget that Catholics worship, adore, only the one, true God. They do not adore images; they do not adore relics. They adore no being but God himself. Catholics venerate relics, statues, and such like. They show them great respect. And why?—For the same reason, precisely, that you and all appreciative persons, erect in the public square, and honor and respect statues of your great men, of your heroes and scholars. Do you worship those statues when you decorate them on special occasions, such as Decoration day? does your honor and respect, your veneration, stop with the statues themselves? Decidedly not. So then, when a Catholic kneels before the image of a saint, his devotion does not stop with the image, but rises to that holy person whom God especially loves, and whom the image represents, and recalls to the Catholic’s mind and inspires him to imitate. A Catholic bows before the cross. Why?—Because immediately his heart is filled with love and devotion for his crucified God, and he is urged to follow in his Master’s sorrowful footsteps. But he does not worship it; he adores nothing but God himself. The worship of images, saints, or anything outside of God, is offensive and blasphemous to the most uncultured Catholic.

But did “Father” Bradley forget the command which reads: “Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them”? Did he not know that this same command sets forth such an act as “iniquity,” and contains the specific declaration of punishment therefor? He admits does that his people bow down—“kneel”—before the images of saints; but this act is just as much prohibited as is the worship of another being in place of God. In fact, the making of the image for the purpose of worship is as strongly forbidden as is the worshiping of another god. Kneeling before an image is looked upon by the Lord as an act of worship. They who did it in ancient times the Lord did not count as his. We read in 1 Kings 19: 17, 18: “And it shall come to pass, that him that escapeth from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu slay; and him that escapeth from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha slay. Yet will I leave me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.” He who knelt to the image of Baal performed an act which God condemned and punished; and yet they did not profess to be worshiping that image. No heathen to-day will admit that he worships the image before which he bows. He worships the thing or principle the image represents. But God calls that idolatry, condemns it, and forbids it. The psalmist says, “Let us kneel before Jehovah our Maker.” Ps. 95: 6. The apostle says, “For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father.” Eph. 3:14. But nowhere in the sacred Book is man instructed or given permission to bow the knees before images of anything in heaven or on earth, animate or inanimate.